On Friday, Charles Samuels, the director of the Bureau of Prisons, ordered a resumption of the transfers, which had been suspended in August after a group of Northeastern senators asked that it be delayed.

"As a former federal prosecutor, I believe this very unwise and unfair policy is completely antithetical to the goals of wise criminal justice," Blumenthal said. He predicted that moving the women, many of them mothers, farther away from their families would increase the chances they would re-offend after being released, and make it more likely that their children "would drop out of school and get their educations on the streets."

The Bureau of Prisons announced the transfers in early July, as a part of the "re-missioning" of the low-security Pembroke Road facility, with plans to convert it back to a male prison, which it had been until the mid-1990s. BOP officials said some 1,120 women held there would be sent to other federal prisons and male inmates would begin taking their place after the process was complete in December.

The minimum-security camp on the grounds would continue to house women.

The move was aimed at reducing overcrowding in federal prisons for men, which are about 38 percent over capacity, Samuels said.

But the transfers were was halted after the lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., sought more information from BOP officials.

Many of the female inmates from Danbury would be housed at a new federal women's prison in Aliceville, Ala., raising concerns among the senators and others that the remote, rural location would make it more difficult for families of the inmates to visit.

In a letter to the senators on Friday announcing that transfers would resume on Monday, Samuels said that 98 inmates had been relocated prior to the suspension in August, either to facilities closer to their pre-release locations or to residential drug treatment programs.

About 390 women from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states will be moved to prisons in Philadelphia and Hazelton, W.Va., bringing them closer to their homes than they were in Danbury, he said.

Samuels also told the senators that another 242 women from other parts of the country would be sent to facilities in Florida, Alabama, Minnesota, Texas and California, while 447 inmates who are not U.S. citizens would be distributed among other federal prisons, based on factors such as security, medical needs and overcrowding.

"While we anticipate that the mission change at FCI Danbury will result in some female inmates being moves farther from their release residences," Samuels wrote, "we anticipate that the mission change on balance will result in the transfer of a much greater number of women closer to their release residences."

Blumenthal said in addition to seeking a meeting with Holder, he has been in contact with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., head of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of the senators who signed the letter to the BOP.

"In my view, the attorney general has the authority and the responsibility to reverse this," Blumenthal said.